Who And When and Why Calls Israel An Apartheid State ?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                       

During the 11-day conflict known as Operation Guardian of the Walls (May 10–21, 2021), Palestinian groups including Hamas fired over 4,360 rockets from the Gaza Strip toward Israel, with a mutual ceasefire taking effect on May 21, 2021.  

Iron Dome Defense: Israel's Iron Dome air defense system intercepted roughly 90% of the rockets targeted at populated areas.
Short-Falls: Around 680 to hundreds of the launched rockets malfunctioned or fell short inside the Gaza Strip itself.



Casualties in Israel: 12 civilians and 1 Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier were killed,

On this day,  only 5 years ago,  Israel faced violent confrontations on two fronts, within the common broader context of Jewish-Arab relations in the Israeli-Palestinian space. One front was Hamas-controlled Gaza, from which over four thousand rockets were fired at Israeli cities. The other was the domestic front, centered around violent incidents of various kinds within Israel (including East Jerusalem): demonstrations, riots, arson, Molotov cocktails, stone-throwing, clashes with the security forces, confrontation between neighbors, physical attacks – with casualties in some instances. The events within the domestic front and their potential implications for Israel are the subject of this article.  How many times do we have to prove that Israel does not practice Apartheidism against the Palestinians?  But people keep on believing these accusations over the truth. The differences are that Palestinians continue to attack Jewish communities or people on the street, which is the build-up to Oct. 7, 2023,  2 years from these attacks.  

Arguments against labeling Israel an apartheid state emphasize constitutional equality for citizens, national security rationales for territorial measures, and the fundamental differences between Israeli society and historical apartheid South Africa:  And this was written AFTER OCTOBER 7, after seeing the affect it had on the Jews who suffered the most.  One would think they had a little more remorse for the people involved.  

Equal Rights for Arab Citizens Within Israel

Full Legal and Civil Equality: All Israeli citizens—including Jewish, Arab, Muslim, Christian, and Druze citizens—possess identical legal and civil rights under the law. 
Democratic Participation: Arab citizens vote in elections, run for public office, and serve as members of the Knesset (parliament), diplomats, and judges on Israel’s Supreme Court. Arab political parties (including Islamist factions like Ra'am) have participated directly in Israeli governing coalitions. 
Arab and Druze politicians serve as members of the Israeli parliament (the Knesset), and Arab jurists serve on the Supreme Court of Israel.  Arab and Druze members of the 25th Knesset and recent Israeli government bodies include:
Mansour Abbas (Leader of the United Arab List / Ra'am), Waleed Alhwashla (Ra'am), Ayman Odeh (Hadash-Ta'al), Ahmad Tibi (Hadash-Ta'al),  Aida Touma-Suleiman (Hadash),  Ofer Cassif (Hadash-Ta'al),  Yousef Atawna (Hadash-Ta'al).  
Shared Public Spaces: Arab and Jewish Israelis live in mixed cities (such as Haifa, Ramle, and Jerusalem) and share the same universities, medical facilities, public transportation, malls, and parks without legal segregation.

As told by Wikipedia:  A major outbreak of violence in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, sometimes called the Unity Intifada, mainly commenced on 10 May 2021 and continued until a ceasefire came into effect on 21 May.  The crisis was triggered on 6 May, when Palestinians in East Jerusalem began protesting over an anticipated decision of the Supreme Court of Israel on the eviction of six Palestinian families in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

It was marked by protests and police riot control, rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. Under international law, the area, effectively annexed by Israel in 1980, is a part of the Israeli-occupied Judea-Samaria West Bank as confirmed by the Oslo Accords of A B C. areas. 

 On 7 May, according to Israel's Channel 12, Palestinians threw stones at Israeli police forces, who then stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound using tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun grenades. The crisis prompted protests around the world as well as official reactions from world leaders.

Yet we learn from the booklet put out by the American Leftists, Jewish Currents, At the Height of the Unity Intifada in May 2021, as Palestinians demonstrated from Gaza City to Haifa to Ramallah, Rep. Rashida  Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, demanded an end to Israel's "APATHEID GOVERNMENT." 

Two days later, Reps. Aledandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cori Bush joined her in tweeting, in reference to Israel:  "APARTHEID states aren't democracies."  The use of the APARTHEID" label---and the rejection, from even a small minority of legislators, of the claim that Israel is "the only democracy in the Middle East"-----signaled a break with US political orthodoxy.  I'm afraid all this fell on deaf ears of who supported such thinking.  This LEFT writer was attacking the RIGHT DEFENDER.  

Human Rights Watch (Media Bias Raters: Media Bias Fact Check rates HRW as Left-Center based on advocacy for policies often favored by the political left, while rating it High for factual reporting. Meanwhile, AllSides rates its online news coverage as Center, noting minimal predictable bias or an even distribution of perspectives)   and one of Israel’s most respected human rights organizations, 

B’T' selem, ( B'T'Selem is widely categorized as left-wing or far-left within the Israeli political spectrum, though the organization describes itself as an independent, non-partisan human rights group.)   issued groundbreaking reports accusing Israel of committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians, echoing what Palestinians and others have been saying for years. 

• Example:  In January, B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories(this link opens in a new window), released a report entitled, A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.(this link opens in a new window) It concluded: “A regime that uses laws, practices and organized violence to cement the supremacy of one group over another is an apartheid regime… These accumulated measures, their pervasiveness in legislation and political practice, and the public and judicial support they receive – all form the basis for our conclusion that the bar for labeling the Israeli regime as apartheid has been met.”
• Example:  In April, Human Rights Watch issued a report entitled, A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution(this link opens in a new window). It concluded:  “The pursuit by Israeli authorities of the objective of maintaining Jewish Israeli control vis-a-vis Palestinians over demographics and land in Israel and the OPT [occupied Palestinian territories]  (1st indication against Israel---- The official position of the Israeli government is to reject the term "occupied territory" for Judea and Samaria (including Area C), and instead refer to the region as "disputed territory."    amounts to a ‘purpose’ or purposes ‘of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons,’ as set out in the Apartheid Convention.  (The 1973 United Nations International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid was the first binding international treaty which declared the crime of apartheid and racial segregation under international law.^[2][3][4] It was adopted by the General Assembly on 30 November 1973 and came into force on 18 July 1976. It passed by 91 votes in favor, four against (Portugal, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States) and 26 abstentions.^[2] 110 countries are currently parties to the convention, with 31 signatories)  It also rises to an ‘intention’ or intentions ‘of maintaining that regime [or regimes of systematic oppression and domination],’ as set out in the Rome Statute definition of apartheid, and a discriminatory intent or intents, as part of the customary international law definition of persecution. These policies, practices, and statements collectively establish a discriminatory intent by Israeli authorities to maintain systematic domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians.”

Israel's population ages show what I'm afraid of:  

Israel's population is relatively young, with an estimated total of 10.2 million residents. with a median age of 29.3 years.  They are relatively a young group.  Just how naive are they?  Has their high school education covered their total history including their very ancient history?  Are they critical readers?  
Age Structure Breakdown
0–14 years: 27% to 28% of the population
15–64 years: approx. 60% of the population
65 years and over: 12% to 13% of the population
Median Age: 29.3 years 


In Israel's overall population, Jewish citizens make up about 78.3% (including immigrants and native-born), and Arab citizens make up about 21.7%.   Have they learned about the pre-terrorists of today, the PLO?  
Jewish Population & Immigration Share
Total Jewish and other population: Approximately 7.828 million people.
Immigrants and their descendants: Israel's Jewish majority has been heavily shaped by immigration (Aliyah) since the country's founding. Immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) alone constitute about 21% of Israel's Jewish population (and roughly 16% of the total general population). Subgroups like Mizrahi/Sephardic Jews (from the Middle East and North Africa) make up about 44.9% of the Jewish population, Ashkenazi Jews (from Europe/North America) make up about 31.8%, and Ethiopian Jews make up about 3%, with a large portion of these communities tracing their lineages back to historical immigration waves.


Resource:

https://jppi.org.il/en/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%AA%D7%A9%D7%A4%D7%B4%D7%90-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%A2%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%99%D7%99-%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%9C- i TT%D7%95%D7%94%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%9B%D7% 5/ The              Jewishpeople policy Institute